Here is the information I need to set up your order:
1)Your preferred ship date Month, DD, YYYY and shipping provider USPS, Fedex, or UPS.
2)Your address Email, Name, Street address, City, ST, Zip, Phone so I can check the shipping cost
3)Whether in trays ($3.75 each or 16 for $45) or in 4 inch cups ($5.00 each or 9 for $40)
4)The varieties you are interested in, qty - Variety
Example:
| shipdate - 4/21/2024 |
| USPS |
| | |
| youremail@wherever.com |
| John Q. Public |
| 27 Bayview Ridge Road |
| Apt 278 |
| | |
| City, ST Zip |
| 555-555-1212 |
| | |
| John Q. Public - Trays |
| 1 - Cherokee Purple |
| 1 - Cherokee Green |
| 1 - Kellogg's Breakfast |
| 1 - Lyuda's Mom's Red Ukraine |
When I confirm an order, I will need your shipping address preferably including phone number. I don't share this information with anyone and it is ONLY used to put on the shipping label for your package. The phone number is not absolutely necessary but if the delivery is delayed, it may make the difference in getting your plants in a timely manner. The delivery agent can call your number if needed.
Some premium plants are higher priced so please check the varieties page. If you order larger quantities of plants, I can cut the price significantly. 96 plants in celltrays will be $2.00 each! Please call for pricing in volume.
You may pick any plant or plants so long as I have them. The difference between trays and cups is that the cup is 4 inches diameter. A tray of similar size holds 4 plants where the cup only holds one. The advantage of the cups is that you get a larger root system. The disadvantage is that it is much more expensive to produce and to ship. I personally set out plants from trays because I have my planting schedule planned for them. The plants will be about the same size within 2 weeks whether they are from cups or trays.
I will include one or more extra plants with each order so look forward to a surprise! If you want to pick some varieties for the extras, please put the word "freebie" next to the variety name. I can't guarantee availability of freebies but if I have the variety, that's what I will ship. Otherwise, I'll pick something close to your choice or that I feel is a really good one to try.
I will begin shipping on February 1st and continue until the end of June. The selection of varieties available on February 1st will be limited. I can ship via U.S. Priority Mail, United Parcel Service (UPS), or Fedex. I ship via Priority Mail on Monday through Thursday. I have a regular pickup by Fedex on Tuesday so in most cases, that is the date I will ship. While I can ship Fedex on other days of the week, I have to pay a pickup premium. I try my best to avoid this because it raises the cost of shipping, but if you absolutely want plants shipped on any other day, I can do so if you pay the pickup fee.
All the major shipping services are raising their prices this year so I have had to revise my standard shipping. I must have a street address for UPS or Fedex, they won't deliver to P.O. boxes. Typical cost to ship a package with 2 or 3 day delivery via Fedex is $36. U.S. mail would cost about $21.00 for the same package. The further a package travels, the greater the cost of shipping.
If you want to verify rates, please go to www.fedex.com and use my zipcode of 35570 as the origin and your zipcode as the destination. Check the "residence delivery" and "courier pickup" boxes and enter the weight as 3 pounds for the box and 1 pound per plant in cups or 1 pound for each 4 plants in cell trays. The standard package size is a heavy duty box 12 x 12 x 12 which holds 24 plants in trays or 9 plants in cups. I can ship in greater or lesser quantities so don't hesitate to ask for an odd number of plants. I can box in 12x12x12, 24x12x12, 16x16x16, etc. Shipping for larger boxes is higher!
I've had to change my fee structure by adding a charge for the box. It is just too expensive on small orders to continue giving them away. By sourcing local materials, I have the cost per box down to $3.00. Note that large orders may require more than 1 box. My standard boxes this year will be 12X12X12 and 24X12X12. The boxes I use are bright white. In years past I shipped in standard cardboard boxes. Occasionally, one would be left sitting in the sun for several hours which overheated the plants. Since changing to white boxes I have not had any plants cooked in the sun!
I will ship plants that are healthy. I can't always guarantee the size they will be because different varieties grow at different rates. I will do my best to ship a good sized plant that is ready to go in the ground. If for any reason, you are dissatisfied with plants that I send, please contact me and I will do my best to resolve the issue. If necessary, I will refund your money. I've had to give very few refunds, but I have had to ship a few replacement plants!
Here is a summary of my method of packing and shipping plants. Its based on several years of experimenting with various packing methods and materials. This is what works for me and consistently gets the plants to their destination undamaged. I use my tablesaw to cut the cardboard out for interior dividers.
Then I assemble the dividers kind of like the divider in a box of quart jars but much heavier duty.
I put a sheet of plastic across the bottom so moisture won't saturate the box and coincidentally dessicate the plants. Then I tape strips of cardboard across the bottom to support the plants during the packinging process.
Here is a box and the assembled but upside down interior divider.
Here is a cell pack of plants ready to slide down into the divider. Look carefully and you will see that I put strips of packaging tape across the top of the cell pack to hold the soil and root ball in place during shipping.
This is the box with the interior divider filled with 6 cell packs of plants and ready to insert the wood strips to hold the packs in place.
I insert strips of wood through the side of the divider so that they go between the plants and across the tops of the cell packs. This holds the packs in place even if the box is turned upside down and bounced around.
Here is the divider with plants in place being slid down into the box. This is a heavy duty 275 pound box which will stand up to just about anything except having a forklift prong run through the side. (yes it really happened, the U.S. mail is rough at times)
Last is a photo of the box with plants in place ready to close the top and ship.
